Photo by Free-Photos at Pixabay.com

I’m sick of this cabbage and carrot diet. Look, it’s turning my tail feathers green!Thank goodness it’s Christmas. Maybe I’ll get some plum pudding, and there’s bound to be some nuts and fruit going spare.I’m hoping there may be stilton and port left over too.Now we’re talking!

Each week Helen gives us a new theme and asks us to choose music with lyrics to suit.

Sometimes it is difficult, sometimes a song comes immediately to mind. Always, it is enjoyable.

By listening to everyone’s chosen song, which you can do here, we get to hear old favourites, and music that is completely new to some of us.

This week the theme is “new“, and I’m offering two seasonal songs for your enjoyment. The first is by ABBA, and I am using them to help me wish every one of you A Happy New Year.

“Happy New Year”

No more champagneAnd the fireworks are throughHere we are, me and youFeeling lost and feeling blueIt’s the end of the partyAnd the morning seems so greySo unlike yesterdayNow’s the time for us to say…Happy new yearHappy new yearMay we all have a vision now and thenOf a world where every neighbour is a friendHappy new yearHappy new yearMay we all have our hopes, our will to tryIf we don’t we might as well lay down and dieYou and I

Sometimes I seeHow the brave new world arrivesAnd I see how it thrivesIn the ashes of our livesOh yes, man is a foolAnd he thinks he’ll be okayDragging on, feet of clayNever knowing he’s astrayKeeps on going anyway…

Happy new yearHappy new yearMay we all have a vision now and thenOf a world where every neighbour is a friendHappy new yearHappy new yearMay we all have our hopes, our will to tryIf we don’t we might as well lay down and dieYou and I

Seems to me nowThat the dreams we had beforeAre all dead, nothing moreThan confetti on the floorIt’s the end of a decadeIn another ten years timeWho can say what we’ll findWhat lies waiting down the lineIn the end of eighty-nine…

Happy new yearHappy new yearMay we all have a vision now and thenOf a world where every neighbour is a friendHappy new yearHappy new yearMay we all have our hopes, our will to tryIf we don’t we might as well lay down and dieYou and I

I’ve never tweeted in my life, but Kat Myrman’s wonderful challenge, to tax our creativity, is definitely worth trying it out. Just take her photo prompt and write a story, inspired by it, in 280 characters or fewer.

Photo by Buzz Anderson at Unsplash.com

Here is this week’s prompt and my contribution. Check out all the fabulous entries here.

If you’ve never had a go, why not try a story of your own? You may surprise yourself!

Happy Christmas everyone. May you, and your family, have a peaceful and joyous Christmas, and a healthy and fulfilling New Year ahead.

A Christmas must for me is to revisit The Fairytale of New York by The Pogues featuring Kirsty MacColl. Well, there is a new version out this Christmas, and I think it is well worth a listen. See what you think! (Licensing restrictions may make this unavailable in some countries – it is by Ed Sheehan & Anne-Marie and you may be able to pick it up from another source)

Dark, but cute post from Ray, with an added bonus of great music and a link to a blogger who sadly died in February 2017. It’s well worth a look at Gerard Vlemming’s site, if only his last full post on 9th February, just before his death on 25th.

A little dark, but cute nonetheless. This is what it might look like if the tables were turned for a day. (This photo came from the late Gerard Vlemmings, who was a blogging visonary with his The Presurfer Blog.)

What would they be listening to as they opened their humans? Trans Siberian Orchestra, of course. (I’ve seen them live on three occasions. By far, the best shows I have ever been to and you should catch them if you can)

For a number years, I taught Religious Education alongside computing. At the time there was a lack of child friendly resources, so I improvised and created my own video library of Bible stories.

As the season of the school nativity plays comes to a close, it seems a perfect time to re-blog and share my own version of the Nativity, a video that includes beautifully illustrated pictures from my daughter Sophie.

“He who has not got Christmas in his heart will never find it under a tree.” ~ Roy L Smith

When I first joined the Army, in September 1964, I started a journal, of sorts, that I called “Special thoughts and feelings”. I would lie in bed at night and write myself into another world, well away from the stresses and strains of Army training.

I jotted down a few poems, a few thoughts, a few hopes, a few dreams.

I listed the words to “House of the rising sun”, and made a list of songs that I could play on guitar.

I rewrote the collection on Sunday 19th March 1967 and retitled it “Private poems and prose by Pete + thoughts in words in writing”. Unfortunately, at that time, I omitted some of my earlier work, thinking it unworthy of record, or not wanting to be held to account. I regret that!

The book I used for the rewrite was a hardcover indexed book issued by Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, S.O.BOOK 345.

I made the mistake of writing CONFIDENTIAL , in red, at the top and bottom of the book.

Because I was in a job that dealt with matters confidential, and higher, the next time I went through Customs I was stopped, and held for some considerable time, while the book was scrutinized in depth!

At that time I was madly in love with Susan. I had been since the age of 14 when she had moved to my nearest village, when her father became Head of a nearby Secondary School. I recall that she had previously lived in Preston, Lancashire.

A lot of content, therefore, revolved around thoughts of Susan.

I intend, over time, to share the content of this “Blog before Blogs were invented”.

I shall record the entries exactly as they were written, but may add comments viewed from a “few” years distance!

There are odd scraps of paper in the book with some complete, some incomplete, and some “what on earth is this meant to be” scribblings. There’s also a “work of art”.

There is one particular poem, titled “Or is it?” that I should have copyrighted. The first line is “Walk in the air……….” I’m sure I could have argued the case for some rights to “The Snowman” song!

Having whetted your appetite, I’m not holding myself to any timetable.